


i do believe i have been changed (for the better)

by johnny-and-dora (sian_jpg)



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, and kidfic because it's for johanna so. how could it not be kidfic, and lilo and stitch (2002), bc we all know they're having two, this is basically just a homage to the found family trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24807826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian_jpg/pseuds/johnny-and-dora
Summary: "Right, because if moving house by itself is a nightmare, moving house with two kids under five should put them both in the running for a Medal of Valour."the peralta-santiago family are moving, jake is emotional about it, and mac has some questions about his family.
Relationships: Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago
Comments: 8
Kudos: 86





	i do believe i have been changed (for the better)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amyscascadingtabs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyscascadingtabs/gifts).



> this is a birthday gift for the wonderful wonderful johanna, who has changed my life for the better and who is just amazing in general. happy birthday my dear, i love you very much and i hope you love this too <3
> 
> an important note: i really internally debated over whether to upload this due to current events. i ultimately decided to go ahead seeing as it's a birthday gift and all but i hope it's clear that the subject of my writing isn't a reflection on how i feel about the actual nypd/police. fic is extremely important to me and i hope it still can be for you too, but i totally respect if people think it's too early or can't read it right now (or ever), that's okay. just wanted to put that out there <3

Moving house, Jake muses as he consults Amy’s laminated spreadsheet determining exactly what should be packed where, is a complete nightmare by itself. Their apartment has turned into a makeshift cardboard box fort, which sounds awesome but is actually super inconvenient. He’s been wearing the same t-shirt for three days straight and has accidentally absentmindedly packed one of Mac’s toys on four separate occasions, each leading to a pretty spectacular meltdown before the toy is hastily retrieved.

Right, because if moving house by itself is a nightmare, moving house with two kids under five should put them both in the running for a Medal of Valour.

Mac, he’s found, can be persuaded to help with the promise of a ‘good work’ sticker and a handful of gummy bears – his sweet one-year-old Maya, on the other hand, seems solely interested in taking whatever’s in the box out again with a feverish glee. Jake relishes the small window of opportunity he has to pack while both his kids are napping, worn out from a very exciting morning of cartoons, running around at the park, and one too many juice boxes.

And yes, maybe he’s been reading the spreadsheet wrong this whole time and has to frantically tear through the precious few full boxes to find the clothes that he was meant to take to Goodwill last week. And maybe he has three unidentifiable stains on his flannel and had a handful of Sour Patch Kids for lunch.

And maybe, just maybe, Jake didn’t quite realise how emotional moving out of the first place he shared with the love of his life and their two beautiful children would turn out to be, and keeps getting stupidly teary every single time he comes across something of sentimental value. But he’s trying.

(There’s been so much life lived in this place. And while their new house is better for them in literally every way, that doesn’t stop him feeling emotional at leaving the first place besides the Nine-Nine that’s really ever felt like his home.)

In short, Jake is a mess, and moving house is the nightmare to end all nightmares - but he’s trying. He’s trying, so desperately, to get some decent packing done before Amy gets home from a long arduous shift and insists they pack some more.

He’s actually pretty proud of his progress by the time he hears the unmistakable patter of tiny adorable feet on the kitchen tile – before he knows it, Mac is toddling towards him with a big grin on his face, trailing a cuddly shark that is almost his size behind him.

_Paw Patrol_ keeps Mac and Jaws McClane (who Mac thinks is named after him, and Jake absolutely does not have the heart to correct him) occupied for a little while, but it’s not long before his son becomes more interested in the cardboard swallowing up their apartment than any of the large collection of toys he has to play with. Kids’ minds are so weird and wonderful. Jake can’t wait to build Mac and Maya a proper official cardboard box fort when they’re finally in their new home.

It’s therefore also not long before Jake hears some very suspicious rummaging and abandons his current box to inspect the open ones behind the couch that Mac is currently looting. He swoops in behind Mac, smiling at the squeals he gets as he picks him up by the waist and swoops him over to the couch, Superman stylez.

“What’ve you found, little man?” Jake asks, plonking himself down beside Mac and craning to get a better look at what he’s got his chubby little fists clamped on. He absentmindedly prays that his son’s hands are uncharacteristically non-sticky - luckily, there are no obvious stains as Mac hands him the book, eyes wide and expectant.

It’s not one he recognises – Amy is just as thorough in her nostalgia as she is in everything else, so their life together is crammed into about a million different photo albums and scrapbooks and it’s often hard to keep track. It’s a soft sky blue (Mac’s favourite colour - probably what drew his attention) and Jake’s breath catches as he opens it, eyes landing on a photo of him and Amy pulling stupid goofy faces, maybe a couple weeks after they first started dating.

“Oh, wow.” He laughs softly as he turns a few pages – he hasn’t seen most of these in years, and it’s enough to make him a little misty. A selfie of them both in the VIP section of the library on their six-month anniversary. Playing shuffleboard on the cruise. A blurry night at Shaw’s capturing the hint of a smile on Rosa’s face. Gina proudly posing the night she won the heist. He points some out to Mac as they flip through, his little boy peering curiously at the people he’s only ever known as family.

He falters on two photos, side by side – one of a very drunk Nine-Nine at their Cop Con party, and one of them all the next day at the thermometer museum, beaming happily. It seems like an eternity ago now – he hadn’t even been to prison yet, hadn’t proposed to Amy. 

Jake’s never been the best with keeping track of time, and it’s immensely strange how something can feel so far away and also like it happened yesterday, especially when so much has changed. The fact that it was actually eight years ago truthfully makes him feel a bit lightheaded. He’s a completely different person to the one he sees in that photo. He’s a husband, a father. A better cop and a better man.

But he still smiles the same – and, infinitely better, he sees that same smile on the faces of his wonderful children every single day. That is nothing short of magical.

“Look, Mac.” He says with a warbling reverence he can barely tamper down. “It’s everyone.”

Mac studies the pages quietly, thumb in his mouth, his brow furrowed very seriously. Jake’s never met a kid in his life more thoughtful than his four-year-old. He’s amazing.

“Daddy? Why don’t I look the same as Grandpa Holt?”

It takes Jake a second to properly understand the question, which is maybe related to the sugar high from his questionable lunch finally wearing off. It soon hits him that Mac thinks that Holt is his actual grandpa – which of course, given his importance in their family, is a totally reasonable assumption. Jake laughs softly, trying to come up with the safest way to best soften the blow.

“Well, bud, we’re not actually related to Holt. He’s a different kind of family.”

“You can have more than one kind?” Mac asks - Jake recognises this as exactly what the battered parenting book he keeps on the nightstand calls a ‘Teaching Moment’ and gets a little nervous, thinking back to when Amy was pregnant with Maya and Mac had a million questions about how she got in her mom’s tummy.

“Well, yeah! Families come in all shapes and sizes. You have me, and mommy and Maya. Your grandparents and all your aunts and uncles and cousins. But you also have Holt and Kevin, and Auntie Rosa, Uncle Charles, and Uncle Terry. They’re all part of the family your mom and I chose.”

Mac considers this for a second, his face scrunching with determination as he tries to commit all those people to memory. “That’s a loooooooot of people.” He says seriously, and Jake laughs.

“You’re right, little man. You have so many people who love you!” He playfully pokes at Mac’s belly, delighting in the giggles he receives as a response – he’ll never ever stop wanting to make his family laugh. “And when you’re older, you can choose your own family too.”

Mac makes his adorable thoughtful face again, and Jake braces himself for a million more questions he’s not fully prepared to answer. But then his son just nods, as if totally satisfied with what he’s been told. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes, daddy.” Mac grins, toothy and wide, and Jake’s heart trips over itself. “It’s like Lilo and Stitch. Family means no-one gets left behind or forgotten, even Stitch even though he’s weird.”

His eyes are glinting proudly the exact same way his mother’s do whenever she gets a question on Jeopardy right or solves a crossword puzzle, and Jake’s heart swells with pride. Of course his son’s epiphany is Lilo and Stitch related - it’s a little while after their fifth viewing this week (Mac’s inherited stubbornness from both his parents means he point blank refuses to watch anything else) and Jake’s finally starting to get through the whole thing without choking up.

That doesn’t stop him fighting the urge to cry right now, though. He swears Amy’s hormones are infectious.

“That’s right, Mac.” He grins, ruffling his son’s wild untameable curls. “You’ve got it in one.”

He takes an unplanned but much-needed break from packing for an exclusive and in-depth guided tour to all of Mac’s Duplo spaceships. When Jake really knows he has to get back to work, he pulls out their impressive selection of crayons and lets Mac doodle beside him while he crosses a few more subcategories off the list. He knows Amy will probably want to reorganise the boxes he’s managed to pack later, but she’ll at least appreciate the attempt.

Mac proudly presents him with his finished masterpiece just as he tapes up the last box for now – a random series of shapes and squiggles that is nothing short of a masterpiece. They settle down to watch Ninja Turtles not long after. Jake hears Maya loudly babbling some excellent toddler nonsense from her room about halfway through and spends most of the third act bouncing her on his lap, pulling silly faces to make her laugh. The credits roll just as he hears Amy’s key in the lock and grins at the sight of his wife being overwhelmed with hugs and love from their kids.

It doesn’t really come up again until he’s tucking Mac into bed, making a show of double-checking for monsters and finishing the last page of his new favourite book. His little boy is adorably drowsy, a bundle of fluffy curls and Spiderman pyjamas as he politely asks Jake to say goodnight to all his stuffed animals too. It takes a while to remember everyone’s name but he gets there eventually, grinning when Mac nods his approval.

“Goodnight, Mac. Sweet dreams.”

“Daddy?” Mac asks sleepily, holding his favourite cuddly lion close to his chest.

“Yeah, bud?”

“I choose you for my family. And mommy and Maya. I’m glad I chose mommy’s tummy when I was a baby.”

And that, well. That just makes everything worth it.

“We’re glad too, because we love you very much.” He somehow manages to say with a gigantic ugly lump of emotion lodged firmly in his throat. Mac’s eyelids are drooping as he says it though, so he kisses the top of his little boy’s head before shutting the door as quietly as possible.

And yes, he does just have to stand there frozen in the hallway for a minute afterwards. Because sometimes your kid says something so adorable that it’s actually physically paralysing, which Jake doesn’t think he read about anywhere in any of his parenting books, and Terry certainly didn’t warn him about. Then again, he doesn’t think any amount of planning could prepare him for moments like these. The ones where he knows that he must be pretty good at this.

“Mac’s glad that he chose your tummy as a baby, apparently.” Jake grins as he slumps down on the couch next to Amy, covering her hand with his – she softens instantly, putting her phone aside in favour of shifting closer to him.

“Well, I’m pretty sure Maya’s still super mad at me for not letting her play with a battery earlier, so at least one of them is.” Jake snorts at that, and briefly wonders how he got so lucky. It’s a familiar feeling.

“We made some pretty great kids, didn’t we?”

“The best.” She agrees, nestling her head on his shoulder. They revel in the peace and quiet for a minute or two before Amy pats his thigh and stands up, tying her hair back in a simple and sleek ponytail.

“C’mon, I wanna get a few more boxes packed before I pass out.”

“Counterproposal,” Jake says, because Amy can sometimes get her priorities a little out of order balancing two young kids, the workload of lieutenant and a capital-P Project like moving house, and sometimes she needs to be reminded to do things she thinks are less important like eating and sleeping. “I make us dinner while you have a bath, then we maybe pack a few boxes if we feel like it.”

Amy frowns, her eyebrows forming that perfect V shape like they do whenever he says something she doesn’t agree with. It’s a familiar look.

“Jake, we’re moving out first thing on Saturday- “

“-Which is a whole six days from now, and I got some done today, and Terry is babysitting tomorrow night, _and_ Charles and Rosa are coming round to help us on Friday.” He grabs her hand again, thumbing intimate and reassuring circles over her knuckles. “We’ve got plenty of time, and you’ve just worked a really long shift, honey. Please just take tonight for yourself.”

Amy scrunches her nose for a second before relenting, flopping back down on the couch next to him. “Okay.” She smiles, leaning in to kiss him gentle and slow in the way he knows means thank you. Her eyes flash with something brilliant and bright as she pulls away and says “Counter-counter proposal, we order Chinese and get slightly tipsy on one glass of wine and then take a bath together.”

And honestly, the thought of the chance to eat some crappy takeout and share an intimate moment with his wife is so perfect that it makes Jake want to cry a little. Again. It’s been a persistent urge today. He’s definitely doing research into whether hormones are contagious – maybe your tear ducts weaken when you get older.

Oh god, he really doesn’t want to think about being old. So instead he kisses her again, because it’s been ten incredible years of kissing Amy and he doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of it. If he’s growing old doing that, then Jake thinks he can just about live with it.

“Man, I’m so glad I married you. You always have the best counter-counter proposals.”

“I guess your counterproposals aren’t so bad either.”

“I’m touched.” He says, because he actually kinda is and it’s always important to be honest in life and in your marriage. And also, because this is another goofy way of saying _I love you_ , and Jake will never get tired of that either.

And so, Jake pours the wine while Amy orders the Chinese, because they’ve always made a pretty great team, and they sink into their familiar and easy banter over some chow mein and a rerun of _The Office_. Amy runs a bath with the heart-shaped fizzy grapefruit bath bomb he got her for Valentine’s Day – and by the end of it, as they’re both tucked up in bed by 10pm, Jake’s ready to admit that maybe moving isn’t a complete nightmare after all.

Not when he has his family.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! you can find me over on tumblr @johnny-and-dora <3


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